Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
Amanda ran toward the hovering vultures, her leg muscles straining as she pushed herself faster and faster.
She rushed past the barn, speaking into her mike.
“This is Steele. I think I found something behind the barn.” Her breath was labored, but she wasn’t going to slow down or stop.
Not now. She rounded the back of the barn and moved through some cornstalks.
About ten feet in, her legs weakened beneath her. Vultures were gorging on another body.
She lunged forward, clapping her hands, and yelling, “Shoo! Shoo!”
They scattered, taking to the sky and joining their friends. They screamed overhead as she stepped up next to the deceased. The remains weren’t as decomposed as Paul’s had been, but they had been violated by wildlife.
The victim was female. Not stabbed from what she could tell, but a bullet hole was in the middle of her forehead. This was an execution.
“Amanda?” Trent said from behind her.
She pinched her eyes shut. “It’s Abigail McGee.” Or what’s left of her…
Two SWAT officers joined them. One of them signed the cross. As if God would do anything. He hadn’t intervened to help her. Or my family… Or Zoe’s… And He or She hadn’t been there for Abigail.
Russell Holden pushed through, and she spun to face him, unable to suppress her temper any longer. “This is on you.”
“Pardon me?”
“If you had just been upfront about Abigail the first time you came to talk to us, admitted that you lost her, she might still be alive.”
“It’s not our policy to disclose who is in WITSEC or why.”
“And you’re certainly not going to disclose you dropped the ball,” she flung back. Trent touched her arm, and she shrugged him off. “And now because of you, I bet we’ll be finding the Archers in much the same condition.”
A vehicle rumbled in the near distance. She stiffened. Is it Hernandez’s men?
The SWAT commander came over the comms to tell everyone to seek cover. One officer with them motioned for them to get down.
Her heart pounded as she crouched low and braced for an eruption of gunfire. None came.
Moments later, the commander confirmed over the radio there was no threat. Crime Scene had arrived.
Amanda was the first to pop up. Russell was staring at her, but he’d best not push her.
He’d only been saved from further verbal lashing because the CSIs’ arrival had interrupted her.
But he was far from off the hook. He was to blame if Valerie and Brooke were also dead, and the odds were high that they were.
After all, what reason would Hernandez have to keep them alive?
He got his prize. “They could be out here too.” The words pushed from her lips, near a whisper, and she scanned the horizon line.
No more circling vultures farther out. A positive sign?
“We’ll call in K-9 and have them search the property,” one of the SWAT officers said, and he got on his phone to make that happen.
Amanda turned again to the body, feeling the marshal’s gaze on her but refusing to acknowledge his presence.
He should be grateful for the snub. She had nothing nice to say to the man.
“We need to have Hernandez brought in.” She pulled her phone to put this request in for herself.
When she heard Malone’s voice, she lost temporary grip on her sanity.
An overwhelming feeling of failure consumed her.
If only we had put things together sooner.
Abigail’s murder is my fault… She swallowed back the self-flagellation and filled Malone in on the situation.
He was silent for a few solid seconds, then said, “I’ll have him picked up.”
She feared for the officers being sent out. If Hernandez was watching through his stupid cameras, he’d have to know the PWCPD was coming for him. He’d be prepared. She filled Malone in on that too. “Have them bring in Nina, as well. She probably killed Paul Archer.”
“Consider it done.” Malone ended the call. She lowered her arm but kept a tight grip on her phone.
Trent stepped up next to her. “I called for a medical examiner.”
She heard him but was without words.
“Leaving her here is rather brazen,” he said when she didn’t speak.
“He’s sending a message.” The marshal’s voice cut through, and it had her hackles rising. She didn’t desire to be anywhere near the man. To see him, to hear him, to smell his cologne.
Still she faced him. “Yeah, and you know what that message is, right? He’s telling us he’s untouchable, and he’s making a joke out of law enforcement.
” And while this might be how the drug kingpin felt, by the time Amanda was finished with him, he would feel her because she was going to strike him so hard, there would be no way for him to recover.